Arranged by Julia Crane
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I was given this ARC by NetGalley in return for an honest review.
I was hopeful, oh so hopeful for a cute, shorter fantasy novella series that included faeries; unfortunately, I am not sure what exactly I read. The point I really want to stress is the fact that an author should not omit or skip vital parts of a story in order to keep it short, especially in the fantasy genre.
The characters were awkward, felt out of place and separate from the story. The main character, full of herself and entitled, has no clue how to act responsibly or even act at all with even the slightest hint of common sense, which caused numerous rounds of eye-rolling, head scratching and head shaking because of the sheer absurdity of this character. The dialogue between the main character and her mother was painful to witness and even made me uncomfortable. The romantic interest created feels rushed, unnatural and a sad excuse for the characters to give in to their teenage biological urges.
The plot was what had me sign up for this novella in the first place, but I must warn other readers that not much fantasy development will happen in the 120 pages of this mess of a novella. Important details are being skipped, barely mentioned in passing or only hinted at, which could have made this story so much more engaging and beautiful.
The writing also had much left to desire. As I mentioned above the dialogue is awkward at best. Grammatical errors were found throughout the novella, such as “would of” instead of “would have”, as well as annoying repetitions of catch words.
Overall, I am sadly getting frustrated in finding good stories to read these days. I was very excited to potentially having found a new series to follow, unfortunately that excitement came too soon. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone looking for a fantasy story.
